What Counts as Done
by Younger Dr. Grey
Summary: Danny and Lacey need to talk, alone, but it's not what they say that changes everything. Danny/Lacey. Otherwise known as, how Green Grove really reacts to Dacey and the tape. (WARNING - mentions of slut shaming and other unsavory behaviors)
1. Danny talks to Lacey

"You know I didn't mean it, right?"

Danny looked up from the ground to meet Lacey's eye. To try to meet her eye since Lacey wasn't looking right at him. He understood that. He did, but he didn't want yet another problem for the two of them to fight over. When did life get so complicated? Why couldn't everyone keep things simple? He was back, he wanted Lacey, and he didn't poison anyone. Simple. Except it wasn't because Lacey wouldn't look at him, and Jo wouldn't talk to him, and he was expelled for something he didn't even do.

He stepped forward, toeing the invisible line they put between them, and Lacey wrapped her arms around herself in response. He stopped, allowing his fingers up to scratch at his chin. Fine. She wanted physical space. He could do that. He counted a whole two sidewalk squares and thick branch of room between them. Danny kept his feet squared up with the stop sign on the other side of the street. Maybe she'd notice the effort he put in to not getting any closer. Maybe she'd hear him out.

Danny explained, "You told me we were over. Then you stopped talking to me, Lacey. I thought that you wanted there to be nothing between us, but I didn't mean that I wanted there to be."

Lacey's arms tightened further. She glanced up, met his eye for a second before looking behind his head. She had a habit of doing that when she wanted him focused on her without her focusing on him. "What do you want, Danny? I keep trying to figure it out, but I don't get it. You chase after me, you get me, you lie to me, and then everything's about Jo."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what? I get talking about her so that we don't have to talk about what's going on with us, but how do you think it sounds when you're asking if I want Jo to forgive me? How do you think I feel when we got so..." close, so in tune that it felt like this was how life was supposed to be, "and then you act like you don't care?"

"I'm trying to be respectful. I'm giving you space."

She practically screamed, "I don't want space."

He screamed back, hands lifting from his sides, "How am I supposed to know that? I can't read your mind. You have to tell me what you want."

Lacey opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her eyes widened, and her bottom lip shook around whatever it was that she wanted to say. Still nothing was said. Danny took a deep breath and stepped in closer. Then again. He asked her the same question he'd been wondering since he got back. "What do you want, Lacey?"

It happened the way it always did - eyes to lips and up again, her own lips pulling in, the hitch in the breath, the start of a step, and then - HONK!

She jumped hard enough where her elbows knocked against her sides. Her hair whipped around when she turned to face the approaching car. The windows rolled down as the guys inside started hollering out of it from three houses down.

The driver of the car yelled out, "How much for an hour?" All of the other guys cheered. Lacey froze, her jaw tightening, fists clenching before forcefully flattening back out again. Danny knew that tactic - don't look suspicious, don't look angry, it only makes others more angry with you - so he did what she couldn't do.

Danny moved in towards the street. The driver nudged his passenger and had the nerve to slow down so he could be right at Danny's level when he said, "Don't worry, Socio. We'll make sure not to wear her out before you get another turn."

Danny didn't really think beyond grabbing that branch on the ground and swinging it at the car. The guys all freaked out, and the driver slammed on the gas to barrel through the stop sign and get away from that "fucking Socio, man!" Danny fought the urge to throw branch after them. Instead, he shook it until his hands stopped vibrating and his heart slowed down a bit.

He waited until he couldn't see them anymore to turn back towards Lacey. Only Lacey wasn't where he left her. Lacey was fifteen blocks of sidewalk away and counting, sprinting as far away from him and the trouble he'd brought into her life as she could get. So much for not wanting space.

Danny dropped the stick and headed home. He had nowhere else to go anyway.


	2. Judy finds out

On their first night in Green Grove, Judy took her family to Johnny Cakes for dinner. Dinner was honestly more of a midnight snack, consisting of blueberry pie and chicken fried steak and mac and cheese, since all Lacey would eat was mac and cheese. After that, for years, whenever Lacey seemed heartbroken or anxious, Judy would go to Johnny Cakes, order some mac and cheese to go, and try to woo the sadness out of her daughter. When Judy found out about the tape, she was only trying to help.

Judy drummed her nails against the edge of the bar with a stifled sigh. Service seemed slower lately, as if the entire world ground to a halt for whatever meaningless gossip the waiting staff felt like spreading around town. In fact, it was as if the whole town had something worth sharing. Everywhere she went, people whispered and laughed. At first, she thought it had to do with Danny Desai getting expelled, but was a delinquent getting in trouble really worth all of this?

"It's pathetic!"

Judy perked up at the nearby voice. Tilting her head slightly to the side, she saw where it came from. The closest table to the bar held a group of girls around Lacey's age. Judy recognized a few of them from different events over the years. The loudest one was Piper Taluse whose mother had a habit of only attending the catered PTA meetings. Beside her was Betty, or Billie, or some name that sounded too country for their suburban New York town. Lacey called girls like them piranhas. Judy called them unbiased sources. At least, she did that day.

Piper flipped her hair over her shoulder so she could lean in to her friends without getting hair in her food. "It really is sad. No one's talking to her. I always knew that whole group was fake." The other girls chorus their agreements.

Betty-Billie-girl chimed in with "Fake and totally fucked up." Piper laughed while Judy cringed. Kids these days. If Judy had said something like that when she was their age, she would probably still be feeling the stings from the switch.

Piper fake gagged. "And by the socio of all people."

Judy's eyebrows rose. Socio? As in Danny Desai? Who in their right mind would get involved with a murderer?

Betty-Billie-girl shook her head in feigned sympathy. "Funny how everyone thought Regina was the slut of the group, but Lacey's the one who gets caught on camera."

"What?" Judy shifted her eyes away from the girls once the word left her mouth. She bit on her tongue until her eyes watered. Did that girl just say Lacey, as in _her_ Lacey? Judy strained her ears to hear more, but the girls only traded silently delighted glances and went back to their food.

Surely, Judy heard them wrong. Lacey would never do anything, let alone on camera. Besides, Lacey and Archie just broke up, and Lacey hated Danny. Didn't she?

"Order up!"

Judy's head snapped back to the other side of the bar. The waitress holding onto the bag hesitated before handing it over to Judy. "It's on the house," the waitress said, eyes flitting to the same table Judy had been listening to. Judy bristled at the look and the way the waitress seemed to apologize with her eyes when they focused back on her.

Never one to be rude, Judy forced out a "Thank you" and rushed out of Johnny Cakes. The whole drive home she told herself that it had to be a mistake. It had to be.


End file.
